An astonishing blend of music, business acumen and philanthropy, Chandrika Tandon’s recent Grammy has reinforced her belief in the power of music to uplift and heal.
By Nichola Marie
“Music is love, music is light… music is laughter and let’s all be surrounded by love, light, and laughter. Thank you for the music, and thank you to everyone who makes music,” said Chandrika Tandon, elegant in a silk salwar kurta that honoured her Indian roots, in her Grammy 2025 acceptance speech. On a star-studded night in Los Angeles, which saw winners like Beyonce (Album of the Year) and Kendrick Lamar (Record of the Year), the 71-year-old Indian-American businesswoman and philanthropist won her first Grammy award for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album for ’Triveni’
A globally recognised business leader, as well as a respected humanitarian and philanthropist, Tandon believes there is a higher purpose behind her music – namely, to uplift and heal. “I am simply an instrument producing the music – I am very focused on the impact. And this is my philosophy across the work I do whether in business, academia or music,” she said in an interview.
While her last album, a set of soothing lullabies for children titled ‘Ammu’s Treasures’, comprised several chants, with ‘Triveni’, she recomposed the chants in different ragas, adding new facets with the flute and cello creating a new rhythm. “The idea is to popularise these chants and make them accessible to everyone,” she explained, regarding the album, a collaborative effort that also features the music of three-time Grammy-winning South African flautist Wouter Kellerman and Japanese-origin cellist Eru Matsumoto. ‘Triveni’, which means the confluence of three, is meant to represent the diverse cultures of the three musicians on the album, blending Vedic chants and meditative tones with world music.
Outpouring Of Love
Tandon’s win unleashed a wave of celebration among Indians the world over. Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X: “Congratulations to @chandrikatandon…. We take great pride in her accomplishments as an entrepreneur, philanthropist and of course, music!”
Touched by the outpouring of congratulatory messages, she deeply values the fact that ‘Triveni’s’ impact has highlighted the increasing awareness of mental stress, especially among youth. “What I have been doing for the last several years through mantras, using these ancient Vedic sounds, which have deep resonances and impacts that are way beyond our comprehension, is critically important today,” she points out. Tandon believes our gurus have worked very hard to teach us about the Vedic sounds. “Chants are a very easy way to access them. This wealth of ancient wisdom is there for the asking, for the taking, and in this day and age, it’s a great gift that’s available to us.”
Music & More
Music has been an integral part of Tandon’s life. Growing up in a small, simple environment in Chennai, there was music everywhere. As a child, she took Carnatic music classes for a couple of years from a teacher who visited their home. Simultaneously, she learnt to play the veena from watching her mother. Her training intensified in both Carnatic followed by Hindustani music. Negotiating the demands of the academic and business worlds, her passion for music survived and later thrived. Creating a studio recording of her father-in-law’s favourite chants as a gift for his 90th birthday would inspire her first full-length studio album, ‘Soul Call’.
At age 55, she founded a not-for-profit music label, Soul Chants. Albums she has released include ‘Soul March’ (2013), inspired by the principles of Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March, featuring 75 classical Hindustani musicians and elements of Latin music and jazz; ‘Soul Mantra’ (2014), with renditions of the chant Om Namah Shivaya in nine ragas; ‘Shivoham: The Quest’ (2017), featuring tracks in Sanskrit and English; and ‘Ammu’s Treasures’, a three-volume collection inspired by her grandchildren.
A Different Path
Born Chandrika Krishnamurthy in 1954 into a conservative Tamil Brahmin family, she and her younger siblings Indra Nooyi (former CEO of PepsiCo), and brother, grew up in erstwhile Madras. Expected to marry at the age of 18, she instead put her foot down and pursued a higher education at Madras Christian College. Influenced by her grandfather, a judge in Chennai, she contemplated studying law, but applied to the Indian Institute of Management on the recommendation of one of her professors, and was accepted into IIM Ahmedabad – one of eight women in her class.
After graduating from IIM Ahmedabad in 1975, she worked as an executive for Citibank in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. She was 24 when she was offered a position at McKinsey and Company in New York City and would become the first Indian-American to become a partner in the company. In 1992, she formed Tandon Capital Associates in New York, and has advised more than 40 financial institutions all over the world to improve companies and their overall performance, including Chase Manhattan Corporation, Comerica, Unibanco (Brazil), Suncorp-Metway Ltd (Australia), Fleet Financial Group, Bank of America, Rabobank and ABN Amro.
Generosity Of Spirit
In her own words, “My mantra has been ‘impact’. …Money is wonderful, don’t get me wrong. It’s incredible to have, and it’s incredible to spend but after a point, it is not about counting. If you don’t do whatever you can do with it, what’s the point? We humans are crazy. We have x thousand and we feel poor, then we want y thousand. We must reorient our minds and say, ‘Stop it!’”
Along with immense wealth, Tandon possesses a deeply altruistic nature. With her husband, she established the Krishnamurthy Tandon Foundation, an independent non-profit private foundation based in New York. It provides grants primarily to educational institutions, universities and Hindu religious organisations, and also supports education, the arts, wellness, and community building. After serving as a distinguished executive in residence at New York University, she joined several of the university’s board of trustees and donated $100 million to the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering which was renamed NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She also made generous contributions to her alma mater, Madras Christian College, donating grants of $2 million, and founding the Boyd-Tandon School of Business of which she is the advisory council Chairperson.
The foundation has donated to several organisations including the American India Foundation, Art of Living Foundation, World Music Institute, Lincoln Center, Teach for America, Yale University, Berklee College of Music, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and New York University. Tandon has also conducted numerous benefit concerts on world stages to sold-out audiences, including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Nassau Coliseum, Times Square, Berlin’s Olympiastadion, and the National Mall of Washington, DC.
Positions & Honours
She chairs the board of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, is a trustee of NYU and NYU Langone Health, and a board member of the NYU Stern School of Business and Chair of NYU’s Global Council. She is a Harold Acton Fellow at NYU and a Sterling Fellow at Yale, where she serves on the President’s Council on International Activities. In addition, her Foundation has established faculty Chairs at Yale and Harvard Universities. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Investment Committee and serves as a Governor of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Among the many awards she has received are the Gallatin Medal, NYUʼs highest honour, the Walter Nichols Medal for leadership and integrity, and the Polytechnic Medal recognising her contribution to science and engineering. She was inducted into the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and The Town Hall’s Friend of the Arts Award. She has received the Banki Moon Award for Women’s Empowerment and Maharishi International University Award in the areas of Celebration and Fulfillment. She has also been profiled in print, on radio, and television, including in CNBC’s The Brave Ones.
She was named the inaugural Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Madras Christian College, her two alma maters.
Family Matters
In 1986, she married engineer-turned-investor Ranjan Tandon, Founder and Chairman of Libra Advisors, a hedge fund. Her daughter Lita Priyanka Tandon was born in 1988. “She’s a singer and a brilliant pianist, though she’s not pursued a life of music. She’s very talented, has learnt the piano for many years, and created a lot of music for her A Cappella group when she was in college. She has children now and sings to them,” Tandon says of her daughter, who is a non-profit leader and advisor.
‘Love, Light, Laughter’ — Tandon’s signature in her emails — continues to be the leitmotif of her life.
